"I love this country and I love the people in it. And I think that
we've been through a very difficult time. And we're going to identify
where the real evil is, root it out, and make the country a better place."–
Michael Moore, describing the Bush administration, not terrorism, as the
real evil, in an interview with CNN's Aaron Brown CNN on February 19

"The budget Mr. Bush proposed ... deserves kudos for clarity of purpose.
It is a serious budget for a serious war -- a just war that must be fought,
won and paid for. The feckless and spineless appear to prefer a superficial
war. Superficial war was the coin of the last administration. Bill Clinton
offered bombast, declaring war against terrorism in 1998. Was that rhetorical
excess? A more apt description is words without deeds. September 11 demonstrates
that the price for waging a superficial war is stiff." -- Austin Bay

"Teaching children to disregard their consciences is the surest path
to lawlessness." -- Alan Keyes

"The American Civil Liberties Union...is so committed to 'diversity,'
abortion rights and gay rights that when one of these causes comes into
conflict with free speech, it is free speech that is likely to suffer."
-- John Leo

"We need to get money out of government. Only then will money not be
important in politics. Campaign finance laws will not make politicians
more ethical, but they will make it harder for average Americans to influence
Washington." -- Rep. Ron Paul

"Under Shays-Meehan [campaign finance provisions], the authors of the
Federalist Papers may have suffered prison time and heavy fines, an irony
that underscores the fundamental nature of political speech." -- Phil
Kent

"And thus, perhaps, Mr. Clinton's real military legacy: The wars that
might have been avoided, the wars that we must fight, now that he's gone."
-- Philip Gold

"I'm strongly opposed to the $4 billion in terms of the tax provisions
that will provide for vouchers." -- George W. Bush's best friend
when it comes to education, Sen. Ted Kennedy

"There is evil in the world, and it coagulates, it gathers force, and
if it bursts its bounds endangers everybody. 'Axis of evil'? Yes, there
can be such things. How could we ever have doubted it? What dream were
we living in, what sort of mist, what fog?" -- Michael Novak

"The 'street' in any given Arab country consists of 278 state-sanctioned
mullahs already preaching death to the Americans and Jews, five state-controlled
newspaper opinion columnists preaching ditto, 577,000 state security officers
making sure nobody says anything to the contrary, and 73 million people
who would very much like to be living in New Jersey." -- Michael Kelly

"Terror isn't about throwing off oppression, and it never has been. Terror
is about the obscene joy to be had in creating chaos." -- Michael Long

"When did a lack of money and accomplishment become a mark of virtue?"
-- Ann Coulter

"The mere wealth of America is not what engenders love of country. In
fact, the least affluent areas are probably the most patriotic." -- Mona
Charen

"The House took a vote on campaign 'reform.' The media won." -- Brent
Bozell

"Only those in denial reject the proposition of a leftism that dominates
the written and visual media alike." -- Ross Mackenzie

"The New York Times is middle-of-the-road. There is no active, aggressive,
important publication of the left in America. And so as a consequence
The New York Times -- when compared to The Wall Street Journal's editorial
page -- may be considered to the left of it. But to call The New York
Times left-wing is absurd." -- Normal Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of Time-Warner
magazines

"Do uniformed personnel need another large across-the-board pay hike,
the second broad increase in two years, or could the services meet their
needs with more targeted pay raises?" -- Washington Post

"To what can the orgasmic sound of Congress protecting itself from the
sin of tainted campaign contributions be compared? It's like the owner
of a house of ill repute who, during a raid by the vice squad, demonstrates
her commitment to civic virtue by firing the piano player." -- Cal Thomas

"Campaign finance reform is a delusion, as likely to reform American
politics as the Boy Scout's oath is likely to reform Osama bin Ladin."
-- R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

"Secretaries of state usually don't concern themselves with big problems,
like condoms. [Powell] might wish he had punted this one to his pal Donald
Rumsfeld. Virgins and how to protect them should more properly be the
concern of the secretary of defense." -- Wesley Pruden

"The Winter Olympics are going on! There's so many events scheduled
for this weekend that they had to bring in five additional crooked judges!
Don't you just miss the old days when skaters would just whack each other
with pipes?" -- David Letterman

"The New York Times said Ken Lay sold $20 million in Enron stock
immediately after Sherron Watkins warned him in August the company might
collapse. Life isn't always fair. He must feel terrible knowing that he
missed a pardon by one president." -- Argus Hamilton

web
posted February 18, 2002

"But actually, 9-11 marked a cultural watershed, not an economic one.
Although a case can be made that there has been a gradual return to more
traditional and virtuous cultural values over the past several years,
certainly a new spirit of patriotism and faith arrived in response to
the terrorist war against the United States. Just take a quick inventory:
American-flag lapel pins by the thousands; heart-felt renditions of 'God
Bless America' at sporting events; a measurable increase in the appreciation
of friends, family members and co-workers; people more seriously undertaking
their daily responsibilities; a greater attraction to the miraculous heritage
of the Founding Fathers; once self-full Americans now giving to charities
and volunteering for community service. With these have come the duty
of courage and the understanding of the clear differences between right
and wrong, and between good and evil. Moral relativism is out the door.
There can be no doubt that American culture has changed since 9-11. Predominantly,
it is a change for the better." -- Larry Kudlow

"Let us be convinced that there is not enough hate or anger to silence
the cries for liberty or to extinguish the flame of justice and truth.
We must have faith that those who now are apathetic, anxious for security
at all costs, forgetful of the true spirit of American liberty, and neglectful
of the Constitution, will rise to the task and respond accordingly." --
Rep. Ron Paul

"Bush's three bad guys -- North Korea, Iran and Iraq -- are ideologically
well chosen. All are heirs to the totalitarianisms of the 20th century.
(Hence 'axis of evil.' Axis: fascism/Nazism. Evil empire: Soviet Communism.)
North Korea is more Stalinist than Stalin. Iran is the Soviet Union in
pre-Gorbachevian foment. And Iraq is Hitlerian Germany, a truly mad police
state with external ambitions and a menacing arsenal. Thank God for North
Korea. Mentioning it is the equivalent of strip-searching an 80-year-old
Irish nun at airport security: It is our defense against ethnic profiling."
-- Charles Krauthammer

"It is possible today for American students to pass through elementary
school and high school, and obtain a university degree without gaining
any appreciation for the men who founded their country." -- Paul Craig
Roberts

"The sole purpose of our Constitution is to define the limited role of
government in order to guarantee individual rights." -- Tom DeWeese

"The budget Mr. Bush proposed ... deserves kudos for clarity of purpose.
It is a serious budget for a serious war -- a just war that must be fought,
won and paid for." -- Austin Bay

"Notwithstanding the isolated pockets of international hyper-ventilation,
we do not treat the detainees in any manner other than a manner that is
humane." -- Donald Rumsfeld

"Does anyone think for a moment, that if those waging holy war on this
country, people fully prepared to die in the process of doing so, had
access to weapons capable of inflicting infinitely greater death and destruction
on us -- and against which we had no defense -- they would refrain from
using them?" -- Frank Gaffney

"[W]e...need to remember that the real enemy is a tactic -- terrorism.
As the recent bombing in Israel proves again, terrorists want to hurl
their victims into confusion and blind fear." -- Tony Snow

"The new laws passed by Congress in the name of fighting terrorism pose
a greater danger to the civil liberties of American citizens than to the
operations of terrorists. Powers once assumed are never relinquished,
just as bureaucracies, once created, never die." -- Charley Reese

"For some reason, we got the mentality along the way that conservatism
was about leaders -- and it never was. It was always about the grass roots,
about people who had decided to move for themselves and then created the
leaders who corresponded to their needs." -- Alan Keyes

"Stripped of its halo, campaign finance reform is the Washington elites'
way of enhancing their power: the media elites, by enlarging their importance
in politics; the incumbent pols, by strengthening their incumbency." --
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

"The self-financed fat cat would have a clear advantage over the local
citizen who works hard to build support for a campaign for elected office."
-- Rep. J.C. Watts

"[T]he choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral
is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted constitutional
laws and sabotaging the death penalty." -- Justice Antonin Scalia

"It's...not fair that the tax dollars of citizens and legal immigrants
must subsidize -- and hence reward -- the college tuition of students
who entered the country illegally." -- Debra Saunders

"The left doesn't love success; it loves victimhood. You can never do
enough...for victims." -- Bill Murchison

"[I]nstead of creating...sitcoms with the warmth and spirit of 'The Dick
Van Dyke Show' or dramas as clever as 'The Rockford Files' -- shows still
popular decades later -- cable instead has chosen to flush positive values
down the commode." -- Brent Bozell

"Imagine Ronald Reagan reading a poll to tell him what to think." --
Peggy Noonan

Unfortunately, the media elite in our society have, for the most part,
become so insular and out of touch with their audience that they believe
that as long as they have the approval of their fellow elites, the rest
of us don't matter. It is simply assumed that any worthwhile person must
share their ideology." -- Sterling Rome, assistant to CBS's retired anchor
Walter Cronkite

"Now, there are plenty of people who have argued with it, but I think
the fact that someone has told a lie, even a big lie or maybe several
big lies over a lifetime, does not mean that they're an inherently dishonest
person. But, you know, this may mark me as one of those people -- I believe
in redemption and that Bill Clinton -- is he an honest person? I think
he is an honest person. Did he lie? Yes, he lied, and on those occasions
he was dishonest. ...But I don't have any argument with anyone who wants
to say, 'Well, Dan, I think you've made a mistake.' My answer to that
is, 'Man, I've made a lot of mistakes over my lifetime'." -- Dan Rather

"The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because there are
a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don't have any
hope for a better life." -- Ted Turner at Brown University. Asked moments
later if he would allow public access to his vast landholdings in Montana,
Turner replied: "Can I live in your home with you? We believe in private
property in this country."

"The Olympics have started! There were 77 countries represented
in the Parade of Nations, including India. There was one person on the
Indian team, one person, and India has a billion people! Think of the
pressure that guy must be under! Mexico brought four competitors to the
games. Good luck getting them to go home after the games. There was one
embarrassing moment during the ceremony when the Germans came walking
in. They kept on walking and they now occupy Idaho and Montana."
-- Jay Leno

"President Bush opened the Winter Olympics in Utah Friday night.
Everyone was frisked as they entered a stadium ringed with troops and
patrolled overhead by F-16 fighters. The president wanted to show the
world that the terrorists didn't win." -- Argus Hamilton

web
posted February 11, 2002

"At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing
down individualism, the Patriots set a wonderful example, showing us all
what is possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice
for the greater good." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy speaking on the New England
Patriots victory and his hostility towards individualism

"College campuses are home to elitists who are out of touch with and
have contempt for American values.... Americans as donors and taxpayers
have been far too generous with the higher education establishment. It's
about time we stop paying for campus anti-Americanism and academic dishonesty.
Nothing opens the closed minds of college administrators more than the
sounds of pocketbooks snapping shut." -- Walter Williams

"It isn't too far a stretch to suggest that the 28,000 new federal employees
hired to upgrade airport security will become union members and, while
they aren't likely to strike, might tie up the entire air transport system...by
simply checking ... each ... and ... every ... bag ... very ... very ...
carefully ... in ... the ... interests ... of ... passenger ... safety.
And for higher pay." -- Rich Galen

"Liberalism is embarrassed by success and prosperity because independent
and free people do not need liberals -- and above all, liberals need to
be needed. Otherwise, they'd have to find real work instead of careers
in politics, entertainment, class warfare (the only kind of war in which
they believe) and, yes (and here I might be guilty of self-incrimination),
column writing." -- Cal Thomas

"It really is refreshing -- literally refreshing -- to have a president
people admire and can follow cleanly again." -- Peggy Noonan

"America-hating has become a badge of identity, making possible
a chest-beating, flag-burning rhetoric of word and deed that makes men
feel good. It contains a strong streak of hypocrisy, hating most what
it desires most, and elements of self-loathing. ('We hate America because
it has made of itself what we cannot make of ourselves.') " -- Salman
Rushdie

"I don't think they (the big pharmaceutical companies) are the bete noir
that all my friends think. I think they need to make profits, we need
to do research." -- U2 singer Bono, finally making some sense

"Until now, the war had been about Sept. 11. The campaign against the
Taliban and al Qaeda is a campaign of revenge and justice. That campaign
is not yet over, but the war, the real war, is not about last Sept. 11.
It is about preventing the next Sept. 11 -- and in particular, a nuclear,
chemical or biological Sept. 11." -- Charles Krauthammer

"There are seven nations on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist
states. All shop at Beijing's weapons-of-mass-destruction superstore,
though some only buy accessories." -- Don Feder

"...[T]he Constitution gave us a legislative supremacy government, one
that puts the decisive powers in that branch which most closely represents
the ultimate holder of sovereignty." -- Mark Tapscott

"But even in wartime, the Constitution doesn't protect just freedom of
popular speech, or the right to support the government, or the expression
of political views that don't make anyone mad." -- Steve Chapman

"It does not do, to countenance the threat of being killed, to commit
suicide." -- William F. Buckley

"One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who
produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who
complain." -- Thomas Sowell

"Government has ceased to mean upholding and reinforcing the traditional
rights and morals of the governed; it now means compulsion in the service
of social engineering." -- Joseph Sobran

"What also struck me, aside from how frightening much in this speech
was, were the things that were missing. Very little with respect to minorities,
the uninsured, the homeless, the elderly, Enron workers who have lost
their life savings." -- Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly on President
Bush's State of the Union speech

"You said we do not go around killing innocent people. I take your point,
except you've just launched an investigation to see whether in fact we
did." -- ABC's Sam Donaldson to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Donaldson
apparently missed the implicit "intentionally" there

"[W]e cannot let the Clinton legacy go. We're living vicariously through
Chelsea because as a country we don't want to let a very popular former
President out of our hands...." -- E! Online's Ted Casablanca on GMA about
Chelsea's new hair style

"I think what we actually heard in the State of the Union speech was
the 'police' State of the Union speech. ...I'm supportive of the President's
efforts to fight against terrorism in our country and around the world.
But it's increasingly clear that it's coming at the expense of a number
of necessary programs for Americans.... The union is clearly less than
perfect and the President did not make that case." -- Illinois Democratic
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.

"John [Walker] loves America. John did not do anything against America."
-- Frank Lindh, little Johnny's father

"I don't know. I'm what you call a 'newbie'." -- Response from a protester
brandishing a placard that read, "No New War Against Somalia" at the World
Economic Forum when asked if he knew where Somalia was

"Whether the terrorists in Guantanamo are getting enough Froot Loops
is not where the country is right now." -- Ann Coulter

"President Bush called the Patriots -- that's tradition for the
president to congratulate the winning team. President Bush is such a classy
guy, he even called the Rams and gave them advice on what to do after
choking." -- Jay Leno

"The Super Bowl crowd booed Bill Clinton during his turn to read
Abe Lincoln's words before the ballgame. Their booing made no sense at
all. You would think that after five or six nights in the French Quarter,
they would see things his way." -- Argus Hamilton

web
posted February 4, 2002

"The world loves us, bleeding and suffering nobly, at the moral high
ground of Ground Zero. To which we say: no thank you. Our paramount national
duty today is to prevent another Sept. 11, not to glory in the moral high
ground -- the moral vanity -- of the victimhood we suffered last Sept.
11." -- Charles Krauthammer

"The pre-occupation of some in the media -- and of self-styled human
rights groups -- with the way Taliban prisoners are being treated (which
is better than they have treated us) reveals that too many among us are
still not willing to do what it takes to combat terror." -- Cal Thomas

"They feed us, let us shower, pray, write home. They even gave us a mattress,
prayer mats and a copy of the Koran. What a bunch of twits." -- Kathleen
Parker

"We would be doing a great disservice to all nations to blur the distinction
between combatants and stateless terrorists." -- Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld

"Modernity, which is another name for the American experience, is incapable
of seeing wholeness." -- Paul Greenberg

"The Enron collapse provides an example of how government does so much
to prevent the market from working properly in the first place." -- Rep.
Ron Paul

"Business is the center of the American economy. You can't have jobs
without healthy businesses. And business is what we do best in this country
-- better than any other nation on the planet." -- Larry Kudlow

"To Dan Rather and to a lot of other powerful members of the chattering
class, that which is right of center is conservative. That which is left
of center is middle of the road." -- Bernard Goldberg

"I think [Bush's] sending a message to the media, 'Watch out, because
I know you're all liberals. I know you're all against me, and I buy that
myth,' which is the oldest myth in the business. There's not a word of
truth to it." -- CNN's Bill Press on Mr. Bush reading a copy of Goldberg's
book "Bias" about the media

"Jeffrey Dahmer's parents undoubtedly would have said he was a vegetarian."
-- Dennis Prager on comments by John Walker Lindh's parents that he "loves
America" and did no treasonous acts

"Poor old Peter, Tom, and Dan, Hanging on as long as they can. Replace
those fossils With three John Stossels. Topple TV's Taliban." -- F.R..
Duplantier

"Maybe they figured how do we beat Bill O'Reilly? Maybe we create a
two-hour program and call it Chung-King?" -- Fox's Shephard Smith on the
announcement Connie Chung has jumped to CNN

"Muslim religious leaders who are all males are known as Imams. Do you
suppose if they ever let women have the job they'll call them Ima'ams?"
-- Lyn Nofziger

"You may have seen that both [Al] Sharpton and [Jesse] Jackson have
rushed down to Houston, to pose for pictures and agitate in front of Enron.
To call these two 'ambulance-chasers' is almost a waste of breath now.
But aren't they ever embarrassed? Aren't their supporters?" -- Jay Nordlinger

"American Taliban fighter John Walker is now in the process of a
plea agreement. The charges might drop from traitor to just idiot. Did
you see Johnny Walker's father on TV saying, "My son loves America"? Yeah,
right -- like O.J. loves his wife." -- Jay Leno

"Congress sent a delegation to Guantanamo to inspect the prison
that holds al Qaeda terrorists. It wasn't a pretty picture. They saw torture,
malnourishment, and hopeless faces, but the Navy is not responsible for
Castro's side of the fence." -- Argus Hamilton